Skirting the Issue
Review of Prada Spring 2027 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
After years of trousers dominating women’s wardrobes, Prada asked us to consider the skirt once again. Rather than seeing it as an instrument of confinement the design duo gave the audience 63 ways to wear it. And what was most refreshing was the fact that each iteration was at a modest knee-length. Which of course is how the most popular skirts across the Prada archive have been cut, but while Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons could have also broadened the lengths to fit in the mini and maxi length regions, they confined themselves to a cut that surprisingly offers the broadest range of styling options across all body types.
It would not be a Prada collection without an element of quirk, or a reframing of something we utilise every day. And today that was velcro fastening, an industrial invention made to easily fasten two materials together. Yet its purpose here was not mere function alone. It was used to create colourful contrasts to grey tailored fabric skirts, and to give the wearer the option to fasten it high or low, making the slit more daring or more demure according to preference. The Velcro strips were also embroidered with delicate flower embroidery as an additional contrast, while still allowing the fastening to remain functional. Femininity that functions always remaining the foundation.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
We used the skirt as a framework for different ideas, different approaches, like a raw material. The limitation of its simple shape can force ideas, make you reinvent the form within its strict confines.
Miuccia Prada, Co-creative Director, Prada
We were fascinated by the way Prada skirts, not alone but in particular, stand the test of time. Their eccentricity, their form, their decoration – there is something lasting in their design language.
Raf Simons, Co-creative Director, Prada
Like women’s well-documented obsession with shoes, today’s question was how many skirts are too many?
Well, if you concept collections in the same way the co-creative directors of Prada do, then the answer is ‘You can never have too many! Because out of 63 looks they presented exactly two months’ worth of daily wardrobe inspiration out of one silhouette. Although this is not just any silhouette, it’s the under-praised hero of the brands historical cannon, put succinctly in today’s notes “the skirt is a Prada obsession.”
The skirt was ‘engineered for freedom’ and has been around since Biblical times. Once worn by both men and women – from ancient Egypt to Scotland via Polynesia – it was effortlessly wrapped around the waist as one swathe of fabric. The principles of its construction are quite strict, in that its generally fixed at the waist and covers the lower half of the body. And the skirt can, for Millenia, be credited with affording the wearer freedom of movement. The period of doorway-sized pannier skirts in the mid-18th century notwithstanding, today’s show challenged the notion that a singular form could provide an endless well of ideas, set within the confines of the Prada design language.
This was a challenge that both Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons set themselves for spring 2027. Now is a time when the shifting priorities of the luxury consumer mean they are always searching for that reason to buy, that can come in the form of both fantasy and reality. This season reality won out, which is not to say the team were no less fascinated by their chosen subject, as Simons put it “We were fascinated by the way Prada skirts, not alone but in particular, stand the test of time. Their eccentricity, their form, their decoration – there is something lasting in their design language.” This is one of the many reasons why you can find them in museum’s around the world, such as the much-coveted lipstick skirt from the spring 2000 collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to a mirror-embellished pencil skirt from 1999.
Prada and Simons surveyed the history, purpose, and design language of the skirt in relation to the brand and used it’s familiarity to alter its shape into sixty different permutations across a single runway show, without the idea ever feeling repetitive. Because of course, in the hands of these designers the skirt was a lone entity – an outfit in and of itself – but also seen anew through the friction created when it is paired with another garment. Pleated full skirts, organza encased pencil skirts, floral-embellished cocktail skirts, and hobble skirts with swirling brush prints that were reminiscent of elements from collections past (referring back to the endurance of the Prada reference archive) were seen through fresh eyes when they were juxtaposed with the provocative nature of a nearly-bare top half, raw-edged knitted tanks, bandeau bras, and boxy leather jackets.
THE WRAP UP
During an interview on the Charlie Rose show, Miuccia made the statement that “The Skirt is like a T-shirt. I want to have my ideas there because then you can dress [it] easily with a sweater or a shirt. It’s easy to wear, it can be eccentric, but it doesn’t change yourself.” Viewing it as an item of liberation, it was one of the first genderless garments before that was a trending term, and reflecting on Junes spring 2027 collection for men, that was all about the 5-pocket pant, the designers wanted to show, in contrast, that the skirt could also be a source of endless ideas. Prada admitted pre-show that “I tried to do a show once in my career that was all trousers and make them interesting. But you can’t sit, you can’t move, and they break.” So, as you can imagine that idea was put to bed quite swiftly.
Designing from the waist down the brand gave us a show of endless possibilities. Engineered around the linear frame of the skirt it was another interrogation of a single idea, repeated in multiple iterations. Working as a demonstration of how this minimalist garment has mutated over the years. Here the idea of how the skirt has been defined as a garment to contain women is wholly disproved.
